The item is couched as an "analysis" but it has the flavor of propaganda persuasiveness all about it.

The American Action Forum (@AAF) today released an analysis of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) regulation regarding financial advisers. The AAF analysis finds that the fiduciary regulation may actually hurt low-and middle-income retirement savers by making investment advice more expensive and less available. Additionally, the analysis finds that small businesses will incur significant costs if the proposal is finalized. In total, the regulation will impact approximately 20,000 small brokerage firms at a cost of up to $242,000 each.

Overall, the regulation imposes $5.7 billion in costs, and the AAF analysis includes a breakdown by state. The top four states that will be hit the hardest by the regulation follow:

[... go to the source, view the entire package, website layout included - get the flavor]

Those following the bracketed added material will see Ms. Garibay, AAF Deputy Communications Director, who took time to author the piece was careful to link to the so-called "analysis."

If ready for a big surprise, Norm's henchpersons don't like fiduciary regulations put upon brokers managing retirement savings of citizens. It's an unneeded burden, they say. Read it for yourself, this quote:

This sea change in the law would force all brokers to move to the more expensive “Registered Investment Adviser” role or charge their clients more money. The pre-publication version of the measure is 120 pages, but the regulatory impact analysis weighs in at 244 pages.

Breakdown

Total Lifetime Cost of the rule: $5.7 Billion ($570 million annually)
Total Lifetime Benefits of the rule: $20 billion to $33 billion ($2 billion annually)

Analysis

The proposed fiduciary rule is ostensibly designed to protect investors. Unfortunately, the rule may actually hurt low- and middle-income retirement savers by making investment advice more expensive, like that of “registered investment advisers,” and less available. The consulting firm Oliver Wyman found the first version of the rule could force 12 million to 17 million investors to lose access to their current investment advice. The DOL does not address these downsides in its updated version.

As for costs, at $5.7 billion during the next ten years, the proposal easily qualifies as both “economically significant” and major. DOL projects costs stemming from advisers complying with the relevant “prohibited transaction exemptions.” A component of this burden results from developing and keeping disclosure forms and customer guides, in addition to “a new, comprehensive compliance and supervisory system and procedures and related training programs to adapt to the new uniform fiduciary standard.” In other words, the current broker model would largely be abolished in favor of a one-size-fits-all fiduciary form that may push small investors aside.

[links in original] Right. Three links; one to another AAF fluffer, another one a dead link which apparently is not enough worry to AAF to get things right and keep them factually up to date and correct. For propaganda, priorities may differ than for objective, factual reporting.

And those poor fiduciaries, having to cry while passing through all costs to those who trust them with their money and might want to see them regulated to not easily be thieves. But they, and AAF, will tell you that might not be necessary, even counterproductive, to have more rules brokers must comply with, under law. Look how good they did with derivatives trading of securitized mortgage tranches, and you have to say, "Leave these productive well-intentioned brokerage-employee Americans alone. They do fine without regulators looking over both shoulders."

While that ending language was not AAF's folks' exact words, surely not, but that's their direction. Never mind the big splat in September 2008 and onward, nothing to see there, but regulating those suckers may cost you a few more bucks per year while they hold your retirement future in their skilled hands; and you don't want that extra regulation because any interference with their exercise of skills could have consequences. Yes, consequences.

Inefficiencies, extra costs introduced into a pure market. Never a good thing, they quickly emphasize.

At least Ms. Garibay is honest enough and capable enough to get the linking right, when citing the final DOL rule proposal:

Clearly a mistake, one someone might have to answer for, yet a perceived need for an appearance of fairness may have had a thumb on the scale in weighing the giving or withholding of the one key link it the whole thing.

In any event, they gave the link, and once given, it is proper to follow up to see what the government says it is doing. And to look at the DOL language to see whether to you it is more, or less objective, and rhetorically neutral in tone, compared to the rhetorical style used by AAF.

The AAF language, "The pre-publication version of the measure is 120 pages, but the regulatory impact analysis weighs in at 244 pages," suggests verbiage bureaucratically growing every time. That can be said, but what is telling is how AAF glides and slides over the fact that the opening executive summary of the final rule proposal is a mere ten pages in length. Not a burden, instead readable during a break between periods of the Wild getting to know the Blackhawks well in the playoffs. Read it any game day.

And at p.3-5 of the DOL item's executive summary, there is this:

Since the Department issued its 1975 rule, the retirement savings market has changed profoundly. Financial products are increasingly varied and complex. Individuals, rather than large employers, are increasingly responsible for their investment decisions as IRAs and 401(k)-type defined contribution plans have supplanted defined benefit pensions as the primary means of providing retirement security. Plan and IRA investors often lack investment expertise and must rely on experts – but are unable to assess the quality of the expert’s advice or guard against its conflicts of interest. Most have no idea how “advisers” are compensated for selling them products. Many are bewildered by complex choices that require substantial financial expertise and welcome advice that is marketed as free, without knowing that the adviser is compensated through third party payments creating conflicts of interest or that hidden fees over the life of the investment will reduce their returns. The risks are growing as baby boomers retire and move money from plans, where their employer has both the incentive and the fiduciary duty to facilitate sound investment choices, to IRAs, where both good and bad investment choices are more numerous and much advice is conflicted. These “rollovers” are expected to approach $2.5 trillion over the next 5 years. Because advice on rollovers is usually one-time and not “on a regular basis,” it is typically not covered by the 1975 standard, even though rollovers are often the most important financial decisions that many consumers make in their lifetime. An ERISA plan investor who rolls her retirement savings into an IRA could lose 12 to 24 percent of the value of her savings over 30 years of retirement by accepting advice from a conflicted financial adviser. Timely regulatory action to redress advisers’ conflicts is warranted to avert such losses.

In the retail IRA marketplace, growing consumer demand for personalized advice, together with competition from online discount brokerage firms, has pushed brokers to offer more comprehensive guidance services rather than just transaction support. Unfortunately, their traditional compensation sources – such as brokerage commissions, revenue shared by mutual funds and funds’ asset managers, and mark-ups on bonds sold from their own inventory – can introduce acute conflicts of interest. Brokers and others advising IRA investors are often able to calibrate their business practices to steer around the narrow 1975 rule and thereby avoid fiduciary status and the prohibited transaction rules for accepting conflicted compensation. Many brokers market retirement investment services in ways that clearly suggest the provision of tailored or individualized advice, while at the same time relying on the 1975 rule to disclaim any fiduciary responsibility in the fine print of contracts and marketing materials. Thus, at the same time that marketing materials may characterize the financial adviser’s relationship with the customer as one-on-one, personalized, and based on the client’s best interest, footnotes and legal boilerplate disclaim the mutual agreement, arrangement, or understanding that the advice is individualized or should serve as a primary basis for investment decisions that is requisite for fiduciary status. What is presented to an IRA investor as trusted advice is often paid for by a financial product vendor in the form of a sales commission or shelf-space fee, without adequate counter-balancing consumer protections that are designed to ensure that the advice is in the investor’s best interest. In another variant of the same problem, brokers and others receiving conflicted compensation recommend specific products to customers under the guise of general education to avoid triggering fiduciary status and responsibility.

Likewise in the plan market, pension consultants and advisers that plan sponsors rely on to guide their decisions often avoid fiduciary status under the five-part test, while receiving conflicted payments. For example, if a plan hires an investment professional or appraiser on a one-time basis for an investment recommendation on a large, complex investment, the adviser has no fiduciary obligation to the plan under ERISA. Even if the plan official, who lacks the specialized expertise necessary to evaluate the complex transaction on his or her own, invests all or substantially all of the plan’s assets in reliance on the consultant’s professional judgment, the consultant is not a fiduciary because he or she does not advise the plan on a “regular basis” and therefore may stand to profit from the plan’s investment due to a conflict of interest that could affect their best judgment. Too much has changed since 1975, and too many investment decisions are made based on one-time advice rather than advice provided on a regular basis for the five-part test to be a meaningful safeguard any longer.

To be clear, many advisers do put their customers’ best interest first and there are many good practices in the industry. But, there are also many instances when consumers receive bad advice based on conflicts of interest.

To deal with these issues and update the 1975 rule for application to the current business environment, in October 2010, the Department proposed amendments to the 1975 rule that would have broadened the definition of fiduciary investment advice under both ERISA and the IRC, making more advisory activities fiduciary in nature. Under the 2010 proposal, advice could be fiduciary if given just once (rather than on a “regular basis”). Advice would be fiduciary if it were agreed that the advice “may be considered” as a basis for investment decisions (rather than as a “primary basis” for such decisions), or if the adviser otherwise was or claimed to be a fiduciary to the plan or IRA or was an RIA. The 2010 proposal also generally would have treated advice, appraisals or fairness opinions concerning the value of securities or other plan or IRA assets, including company stock purchased by employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), as fiduciary advice. Recommendations made as part of certain sales pitches, however, would not have constituted fiduciary investment advice under the 2010 proposal. In addition, the proposal requested comment on whether advice to rollover plan assets to IRAs should be considered fiduciary advice on the investment of plan assets. The 2010 proposal did not include any new prohibited transaction exemptions. However, the Department expressed its willingness to consider granting exemptions from ERISA’s prohibited transaction rules by soliciting public comments regarding the number of transactions that would have to be restructured due to the prohibited transaction rules, whether existing prohibited transaction exemptions would be available for such transactions, and the number of new applications for exemptions that the Department could expect to receive regarding the transactions. In response, many commenters stated that new and amended prohibited transaction exemptions would be necessary under a broader fiduciary investment advice definition.

The 2010 proposal elicited extensive comments and prompted vigorous debate. While many championed the goals of the proposal and some feedback was positive, other stakeholders also expressed concerns during the notice and comment period and at a public hearing. Some commenters rejected the premise that conflicts pose any dangers to plan or IRA investors, asserting that the Department had not provided adequate evidence of tainted advice or adverse consequences. Recurrent themes from the comments were that the Department should wait until the SEC completes its consideration of related reforms and that the Department’s regulatory impact analysis was inadequate, because it neglected to consider the impact the rule would have on the IRA market [...]

[footnotes omitted] It does not seem to be heavy handed language to me, but you judge. Another thing to judge is does the AAF suggestion to "defer until ..." ring true? One can defer, and defer, and end up doing nothing. The SEC might always do something, and we can always wait and see if they do. If not that, delay has a million justifications if instigating delay cuts in the interests of those offering justifications.

In judging, note that rollover figure - $2.5 trillion collectively on the table, under guidance from others, and it just might be tempting to arrange advice of flowing cash in ways not in investor interests, but yielding the biggest yield to the advisory network.

$2.5 trillion is a zero-sum-game, where the loss from investor accounts for fees and charges exactly equals the exactions imposed by advisory persons - charges imposed by fiduciaries upon those they serve. There's much room to co-opt a share of managed money, without too much notice so long as greed is ratcheted down from extreme to borderline.

And why do those advising you about your money, trusted greatly that way, not want to be held to fiduciary standards?

Asking such a question is opening Pandora's box, but the AAF would like you to focus only on, "Hey it might cost you pocket change per-transaction, and you don't want that, do you?"

If the rollover figure of $2.5 trillion is real or exagerated is a factual question I cannot easily answer but something that can be researched by concerned readers per following DOL footnoting. Considering it as sufficiently accurate within anyone's ability to forecast the future, you might think of the churning potential that collective sum represents, over the years. And each churn of the portfolio brings a charge.

Yet the existing 1975 rule is noted by DOL as covering such an ongoing situation, churning, but not covering one shot high stakes advice.

However, the advice given, as well as can be discerned by Joe Citizen in troublesome as well as trouble-free situations, is in each instance as likely as not the advisor's best honest opinion, where sometimes good things happen, sometimes not, but sitting tight on a portfolio has its risks too so that advocating trading levels can be like the three bears, one too much, one too little, and one just right. Meaning that rules cannot be too inflexible.

Think it all over.

Now, last point, if you prefer weasel to roach in analogizing Norm, that's fine with me.

it's your choice to make.

Wrapping up; Teddy Roosevelt's speak softly but carry a big stick adage is sound, but speaking softly alone may not work as well. History has taught that. It seems all DOL wants is that bigger stick, and if the opponents of rule reform are going to be top rate and honest and pure as Caesar's wife, what's their worry?

__________UPDATE____________

That American Action Network is a frigging Roach Motel.

And you know it's a roach motel, since it's full of 'em.

Here, here and here. Vin and Norm. Of course. Batman and Robin roaches.

No comments:

TomJoe - Joe, arm around his most beloved SUPERDELEGATE

An abiding insult to progressives happened in 2016 when the two most unpopular candidates of all time were offered the public by the two stranglehold parties. NEVER FORGET. END MONEY RUNNING POLITICS. END SUPERDELEGATES. REFORM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BY MAKING IT, OF ALL THINGS, DEMOCRATIC. Try clicking the image, to see double-speak from an "unpledged delegate" claiming neutrality. If the double-speak and the image (and Davos) fail to remind you of the George Carlin "big club" online video, it should. And yet, fight it anyway, because you are alive and upset, (if you are either).

The best President we never had.

Bernie at the People's Summit. Click the image to watch the video.

Democracy Now! posted to YouTube. If you've not an hour to watch this you have the spirit of a brick. Or you're a Republican. But I repeat myself.

Tulsi Gabbard - Veteran of two Iraq tours.

Congresswoman Gabbard expresses rational doubt over not the military she served, but about continuation of the policy of Islamic regime change warfare and the consequences. Click the image, to watch the interview with The Young Turks alternate media outlet.

Tomorrow Belongs To Me. Perhaps?

image from: The Atlantic - click image to read

MISSION STATEMENT OF THIS BLOG:

to fight stupidity in all its forms

________________________

. . . in . . .

Sell 'em Prosperity Gospel and feed 'em beans. Some never catch on.

What is Prosperity Gospel? It is: Channeling the mind of a brick into GOP and related dogma. Read this Minnesota story. Click the image to read its fine print. (image source: Bluestem Prairie) The image shows a part of the "mind" of a 30 yr. and still-going Prosperity Gospel faithful attendee. A Dev Crabgrass post fleshes things out. Islamaphobia is but one dimension of a larger "GOP base" stupidity. Stupidity you can bank on. HINT: Follow links in items linked here. Questions will get answered. And --- There's more -

You know them, you've lived next to them, they have their worldview.

To disprove an adage, and to show a matter of amount, of degree, and nothing else.

Ultimate aim would be to show enough money can buy happiness, at least for malefactors of great wealth, and just lie to the peasantry. That is today's Republican Experiment. Honor it. Believe. Moreover, Dickens erred. Scrooge was not elderly, he was a middle-aged Wisconsin man with Munster hair and charmless. Koch ghosts haunted his younger thoughts until he got his mind right.

Rename the "Democratic Party" the "Superdelegate Party," unless and until ...

If Tom Perez's DC beltway bunch stay anti-Democratic, then rename "the DNC" to "the SNC" (the Superdelegate National Committee") in honor of the big thumb on the scale. Above is a grassroots-friendly Ramsey ward 2 precinct 2 caucus resolution, unanimously passed (click it to read). May it not fall through the cracks between precinct caucus and moving up the caucus and convention totem pole. It is sad, indeed dreadful how things now are.

TITANIC hubris. PREMATURE prancing.

End forever the "superdelegate" insult. They have had a big-time learning experience, but have they learned??? So -

Whose Party is it; and when was it purchased?

click the image, read it, then read the Variety story (and follow the link in it to the moneybags suck-up letter). Then - Weep for the people. They lack great wealth and cannot buy suck-up politician-attention from those making lifetime earnings selling it.

Ossoff LOST in Georgia, despite trainloads of beltway/Hollywood money.

Bernie did not wholly turn his back; but unlike as with Quist, Bernie was not invited, nor a focus. It was the beltway Dems' chance to flex their muscles. Bernie did have a pro-Ossoff message. Tepid? Yes. Comparable to beltway DCCC late money spent in Montana - in limited amounts.

But wait. There's more -

DNC solidarity, yes, but continuity means more. To HappyJoe, if not to real people with real needs and hopes. Click the image, read the HuffPo proportionality suggestion.

If Paul Ryan's agenda sickens you -

Click the image to view the progressive dozen. This link, for issue detail from Sen. Sanders.

Click the image; read all about it

Time for Progress is Upon Us

click the image - view the campaign flyer showing Liebling's issues platform in a nutshellAND: Please view this video about the candidate, via a conversation with the candidate - an issue oriented candidate who readily says where she is, on leadership issues that are real and not targeted to inflame biases and passions above reason and responsibility.

Tweet if you IQ is 90 or lower; 55 being best. YES I'M TALKING TO YOU!

Click the image to see what's behind that AP lead image. An EXCLUSIVE, nobody else to touch it. It was Cambridge Analytica and Conway personal polling that settled on that IQ55 optimum. Don't want too much that way for occupying the Trumperville heart of the city. Dumbing it down from Sean Spicer may be a challenge, however, . . . rest assured.

Are we to see a reenactment swearing contest; what did he know and when did he know it?

click the image to read Politico coverage. Out of the loop, integral part of the loop, what will we learn?

Roundup the grassroots?

Not an entrenched beltway bunny? Then click the image and in about one minute, understand your place in the pre-Trump Democratic Party. What next, folks?

DINO NEWS: Democrats in Name Only; they exist as a problem.

a DINO with an up-top money slot

This link. Al Franken in the linked WashTimes item is quoted:“There are a lot of Minnesotans who are Franken-Trump voters. You have to go and talk to them, and you have to listen. That’s what we need to do. We need to listen.” Al knows the score better. Al knows Sanders-Franken voter numbers dwarf that Trump-Franken segment, as to where Al needs to pay most attention, "to listen."

Al, in no uncertain terms, should be telling Tom Perez and the beltway money-bunnies of a new fresh smell in the air. Recognizing (in kind wording) one DINO foundation-family's drift, now, into irrelevancy is far from admitting what's relevant and moving full speed to the Bernie side of the force.

Dinosaurs, DINO ways and means, must and will be extinct (can you say "Primary Joe Manchin and Clair McCaskill"). As Al in the item says; listen. Hear Bernie sounding like a giant asteroid strike upon a DINO status quo. Indeed, primary the poster DINO-bunny of artful misdirection and status quo actions, Cory Booker. Gain attention from that, successful or not. Ideally, send Cory to work with Eric Cantor on Wall Street, where his heart is.

Just an old sweet song.

They had a special election which an egregious person won; but then Tom Price held the seat previously so egregiousness is nothing new in GA CD6.

The most substantial and lasting news from Georgia recently is Gregg Allman's death. It happened without any major fundraising on either side, Gregg or the Reaper; with Gregg finally facing "One Way Out.'

Selfie from hell.

Greg Laden authored an excellent OTTO ENDORSEMENT which he identically cross posted on his Science Blog and at MPP (MPP itself does not endorse but individual contributors are free to post personal endorsements there).

Rob Quist tried. He and his family, gaining pubic attention, have shown well. May they prosper.

Montana seems a good state that voted wrongly. From outside of Montana Quist's virtues include being an artist, rebel, populist progressive, and free spirit. Naming their son Guthrie is fine, and at a guess a sense of western history touched daughter Halliday's naming - the Halliday windmill - but perhaps not and the name is based on a kinship genealogy. Roots in Montana with promise for a nation, money pumped from outside did in the candidacy despite grassroots money to make it a fight. We must fight forward from this battle toward winning an anti-plutocrat modern New Deal war.

What has a meandering digression got to do with the job of legislating good law?

Perhaps a context is needed. Try this, an actual Minnesota House floor discussion of an anti tax-haven bill proposed by DFL legislators. My Rep., Abigale Whelan, (R), who still sits in the legislature is featured. She will not seek reelection. Gratitude exists over that.

Is it a surprise that after that digression she voted with the Republican leadership? To kill the bill?

Is there sense to Jesus taking the weight of reasonable performance of duty off the shoulders of Rep. Whelan?

250,000 views of that YouTube item is more than folks living in the district, suggesting a larger public has its answer.

Of interest. My favorite Odyssey film is Oh Brother Where Art Thou.

Click image to enlarge and read. Or: Read all about it (with links). Website bio. Bonus link, bonus image below, tune time and please, end up differently.

California's S.B. 562 - With an economy and population equaling Canada's, would doctors rebel?

What the bill's proposed Single Payer reform would do and why it may succeed. Noteworthy fact: There seem to not be droves of doctors leaving Canada. Not planeloads nor trainloads. Discontent seems wholly absent.

Alma mater commencement speaker

Two questions: First what was the speaker fee? (Goldman level, or adjusted?) Second, given how Ms. Clinton reacted to election results the day after, why in the world is she not forming an, "I Won The Popular Vote he Had More Electors So Let's Amend the Constitution Together," PAC instead of some such "Still Relevant Together" thing in cahoots with Howard Dean? (Such and amendment would be relevant.)

Slick website. Real slick. GMO progressive, perhaps?

Click the image - view the webpage. Too slick? Consider the highlighted word "Bernie" in the context that:"Many of us," and "Some of the people [...] include" begs a question big time. Not a penny from me, until out of the weeds on useful truth; i.e., disclose "most of us" and "Bosses, with 2016 candidate affiliations, are ..." to get helpfully specific. Would you buy an auto without knowing something of the engine?

Click the image for the complete MPP post. Click here for the Bill Moyers post. Click here to Download the free e-book authored by MN Sen. John Marty. Click here for journal article, "Single-Payer Reform: The Only Way to Fulfill the President's Pledge of More Coverage, Better Benefits, and Lower Costs." Click here for pnhp.org - Physicians for a National Health Program.

Click the image watch, and then agree/disagree, but give it a try.

If one party can be made responsive to the people, its one more than the status quo. Learn or be sidetracked makes sense, but propaganda can be "wrong ox" our established Dem ox does not deserve to be gored. Our ox is the good ox, pulling your pitiful little wagon, really. Yours; trust me. Take the time to ponder.

Take the hour to watch. Is it for you? If the Tea Party insurgency brand is not for you . . .

Click the image for the video. Also, Wikipedia, and follow links as you choose. "Primary" the superdelegates since they decline stepping aside? Perhaps they adapt and join for justice. Do your own websearch, find out more.

Glen Taylor's Strib. Feel good news?

The truth shall set you free? What if the truth is that you are consciously being kept on the razor's edge because there you are better shorn?

Bernie discusses a speech he'd heard. A speech with a pair of potted plants behind the speaker.

Click the image to watch a critique.

Buy This Book. Available NOW from your favorite bookstore or these links:

Cause for skepticism. And worry.

All you need is love?

Imagine: Imagine there's no money ... to hugging on a flag ... ...................................................

dictionary definition -

A long-standing definition. You can tell by how the paper's aged.

Fool me once . . .

Socialism, suitably defined, is great.

Click the image, see a definition. Agree or not but it's free of fearmongering.

Non-socialists, having a good laugh.

image credit: New York Times "And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock."

Non-socialists, having a good laugh.

Brothers in spirit. Holding kindred dynastic yearnings, which got trumped. Should we anticipate better times as we await Trump's competence? Don't laugh for too long. The bar is set by precedent.

Bubba and Blankfein do lunch at the Boca Raton Resort And Country Club.

Little trainees. Caution advised.

Without Mammon being paid and providing the technology, it's sticks and stones. Mammon has no music. Coin of the realm does fine.

Tell them stories. The Armor? It's the Bullshit that's deadly. If it's indoctrinate and not educate, make it on your dime, no vouchers for dogma. Just say no. To vouchers.

What Evil Empire, huh? You're delusional.

three stooges

No, not dressed for roles in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

Actual sartorial decision making by Cambridge Analytica after doing a full micro personality assessment of each. One as if having a Gilbert and Sullivan role, the other as if a mid-level Russian Cold War commissar from midway along the Trans Siberian Railway, but with ambition toward a Kremlin posting. Brecht died before he could write a role for Yeltsin. Nevermind; Bannon Tune Time.

Bipartisanship

... and I agree with my friends. My friends agree with their friends, while the friend of my friend is the enemy of my enemies and their friends, and the friend of an enemy of the friends of my enemy is -- wait, I lost the thread ... Well, okay, how about this one, this Shia walks into a Sunni bar and sez, ...

Wisdom of the ages?

Make CHANGE more than a slogan.

But wait. There's more ...
-- AND -- There is wisdom to candidate-direct contributing, vs. the generic party collected/distributed variety -- with the former you know what you are buying and, by specificity, you can cull out funding any of the dregs --

click image

DENTON COUNTY, TEXAS, ROTARY CLUB -

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"You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities."

Following the link Google gave, there is this follow-up verbiage, to make EU bureaus satisfied, hopefully, and since it's all Google stuff and since I am a person working alone and in obscurity putting stuff online w/o compensation or resources, any/all inquiries, hence, should be directed after suitable user websearch, to Google.

Google provides the blog template used here, and appears to possibly include within it the use of cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse site traffic. Google also appears to possibly share information about your use of this site with its social media, advertising and analytics partners. See details - below (following text verbatim from a website linked to by a Google website:

Where should 'See details' link?

The link in your message may expand the area that contains the message, to offer more information, or it may open a new page that contains additional detail. That new page might be part of your Privacy Policy, or it might be a dedicated cookie policy.

Again, we can’t tell you what to write by way of detail: it will depend on the cookies and other information you use, the other services you work with, and any opt-out controls made available to users of your site. However, we can offer some help as regards your use of Google products on your site.

Implementing a consent mechanism like this for your EU visitors, which includes a link to an additional information page that in turn links to Google’s information about how Google uses data, can help you meet the requirements of Google’s own policies. It should also help towards your compliance with European cookie and data protection laws.

Back to the blog author's text: Bureaucrats are Crabgrass. So, God bless the EU, Google, and their respective bureaus and lawyers.